#4 - Resolutions
"A Broken World, Part 4"
Carol stood rooted to the spot. The woman in green. She looked familiar. It was something important. That much she knew without a shred of doubt. So why couldn't she remember?
While Carol was lost in her thoughts, others were acting.
Speedball had recognized the woman in green as his missing former teammate, TimeSlip. He also recognized the figure that had entered the room behind them - The Sphinx. With very little thought he launched himself at the Sphinx. It was possibly the unexpectedness of his attack that saved his life. The Sphinx had already disposed of the entire Imperial Guard present at the Shi'ar HQ and was carrying the obviously dead bodies of two of it's most powerful members - Guardian and the former Avenger, Vision.
Speedball stuck the Sphinx full in the chest with his feet. Usually, the force of the blow would have been shrugged off. Speedball, however, augmented the already considerable force of the impact by exponentially increasing the kinetic energy of it. The Sphinx was blown backwards down the corridor that he had entered from.
Speedball turned, grinned at the look from The Black Knight, then said coldly, "Take out Deathbird while I keep him occupied."
Without waiting for a response, Speedball turned back to the entryway. His body began to blur as he drew kinetic energy from the hallway.
Next to react was Deathbird. She recognized the green-clad Terran female from her dreams and with a wordless snarl she aimed a blast from the Ka Stone directly at her. The Indian girl was still recovering from the last use of her power to slip through time and did not react before the blast hit her.
The cry that was ripped from Rina Patel's lips would have frozen the souls of anyone in the room - if they had been able to hear it. Unfortunately for them, they were not in the same room anymore. Neither were they in the same reality or time.
Dressed completely in black in a style reminiscent of the early Middle Ages, The Black Knight watched the scene in the pit unfold before him. Where many rulers would have been sitting enjoying their afternoon sport, The Black Knight was different. He did nothing to cultivate the aura of menace that he exuded. He didn't need to. His deeds over the last decade colored him black in everyone's sight. He reflected on the events since they had stopped the Shi'ar from conquering the Earth.
The first years had just been to rebuild from the devastation that had been caused during the war. The few remaining heroes had been hard pressed to keep order during those days. It was during that time that the Ebony Blade had gotten a hold on him. That thought only produced a simple smile now, although deep in the very darkest depths of his remaining soul the man once called Dane Whitman screamed and sobbed.
It had started simply. Excessive force used when stopping criminals. Then he had taken the lives of some superpowered criminals, because, as he justified it, he could find no other way to stop them.
That had raised outcries from some of the remaining heroes. Others said nothing - they had seen too much during the war to worry about the deaths of criminals. There was a world to put back together and they were going to do whatever it took to do it.
Death followed death and soon the Blade was dictating all of its wielders actions.
When the heroes came after him - to bring him to justice - they were too late. Only the Black Knight remained. Influenced by the Blade, he had anticipated the arrival of the heroes and had planned accordingly. If anything had been left of Dane Whitman it was obliterated during his systematic killing of every hero that came against him.
"Lord?"
The Knight looked at the servant who was vainly trying to hide himself.
"What?" was the only word he uttered in a cold, dark voice as he smiled at the terrified individual before him.
'The battle is over," the man stammered, "should we send more of the prisoners to the pit?"
The Knight looked at the powerful figure ripping at the flesh of the men it had just killed.
"No, you will do as Sabretooth's next meal," he said as he casually pushed the man over the edge of the pit.
He looked at the desolate wasteland around him. This was what remained of Xavier's estate. He had come here hoping to find some reminder of his past life. The one before he had helped to conquer Earth.
There was no leash around his neck, although some days he could feel it there. Why had he not tried to stop Deathbird? He loved her. That much was true even now. He even thought that she loved him, although her concept of the idea was very different.
Sadness filled his days. Everyone that he had known was gone. Eliminated for the good of the Empire. Every newborn child was monitored carefully. The chances of a gifted child were remote. Those not found at birth were found when their genetic heritage was activated. After all, the Shi'ar had been the ones to help Xavier to improve upon his Cerebro unit.
Why was it that he had come here? Today he could not help but think that all was not lost. Changing things would require travelling to the past. There wasn't enough left in the present to salvage. However, he could not escape into the past again. He'd done that and look where it had led.
The last 'hero' left on Earth fell to his knees and wept.
Robbie Baldwin looked up from the shattered figure on the ground in front of him. Over the last two years Rina and he had gotten close. He was not sure that she loved him like he did her. That didn't matter. They were friends and teammates. Or they HAD been teammates.
He was sure looking at her body that she was dead. A lesser being would have fled screaming from the look that Robbie directed at them. The Sphinx was not a lesser being. He was the ruler of the Earth and had been so since he had been instrumental in destroying the invading Shi'ar army.
The people of the planet had been only too willing to except the Sphinx's demands after he had shattered the remaining heroes. A few had escaped and had launched sporadic attacks over the last two years. This had been one of them.
The rest of his team was down. Many he suspected were dead. As dead as Rina. That thought brought an animalistic scream from his throat and he accelerated towards the source of his pain.
He hit the Sphinx with his hand. Even with his kinetic energy enhancing the attack, the Sphinx just stood there.
"Did you think that your attack would work a second time?" he asked.
In the back of his enraged mind Robbie had no idea what the Sphinx was talking about. He had never tried to do that before... or had he?
TimeSlip knelt in the fetid waters of the swamp and screamed. Around her she felt the pieces of reality slipping away. Over there was an alien structure standing amidst the trees of the swamp. In another area, men and women were transforming into gruesome creatures straight from the set of an Alien movie.
Rina Patel could feel her whole being slowly coming apart. Each new warp in the fabric of reality brought searing pain to her head. So she did the only thing left to her - she screamed.
Warbird looked down at the screaming figure and then at the woman with wings. She remembered. All that she had experienced had been at the hands of the Shi'ar called Deathbird. All logical thought fled from her mind as she released a blast of energy containing all her anger at Deathbird.
Deathbird ignored the screams of the Terran below her. She also remembered what had taken place. All the strange dreams she had been having. They had been triggered after this moment. The moment when she had forged her own destiny and become Majestrix of the Shi'ar. It always seemed to come down to Danvers' meddling in her affairs and thwarting her. Not this time. She still had the strange stone and she unleashed a blast through it directly at Warbird.
Reality it would seem has it's own guardians. Not that it always needs them. Sometimes it takes matters into it's own hands, like now. Instead of hitting their intended targets the two blasts connected with each other. The resulting explosion caused reality to warp around its three participants once more.
HIS Ka Stone was inside that room. The room that he had been thrown out of like so much garbage. That had been his first surprise. The second was that the youth looking at him from further down the corridor was succeeding in preventing him from re-entering.
The Sphinx began to strain against the force holding him back. He noticed that he could move, if only in miniscule steps. With his face set like the stone of his beloved pyramids, he directed himself to his task.
In the back of his mind, however he noted that the youth would pay for this indignity.
Suddenly he stumbled forward and fell to the floor. Whatever force had been preventing him from moving forward was gone. Looking up he noticed that the youth blocking the entranceway was also gone.
He could hear from the room the sound of a woman screaming in agony. What did that matter to him? He was the Sphinx and was about to regain HIS Ka Stone.
Reality warped around the people in the room once more and suddenly everyone was back where they had started from.
TimeSlip had stopped screaming but was laying on the floor sobbing.
Bishop was on his knees behind Deathbird.
Speedball was rising groggily from his knees with a confused look on his face.
The Black Knight was staring with horror at the blade in his hand.
Two people in the room were ignorant of all these facts - Deathbird and Warbird stood with gazes locked for what seemed like eternity. The hate etched in each other's faces was frightening to see.
"You....you did this," breathed Warbird. The hate she felt for the "woman" before here permeated every syllable.
"I did, and this time I will not allow you to stop me," returned the Shi'ar.
Warbird's mind was struggling to fight past the anger and hatred she was feeling. Was it Mar-Vell that had taught her to fight without anger? Did that happen here, or in the other place? That thought brought a moment of clarity to her. She would need to separate Deathbird from the red stone. That was obviuously the source of her newfound power and it seemed very familiar to her.
"The Sphinx's Stone," she said. "You stole the Sphinx's stone".
"Yes, I took this from a corpse and used it to make things the way they should always have been."
"Now I'll use it to remove the final bugs in my plan," she stated with ice in her voice as she brought her staff to bear on Warbird.
A CRACK brought both combatants to a momentary halt. They glanced to the side to see the Sphinx holding Speedball's lifeless body in his huge hands. His rolling head teling the story of a broken neck.
The Sphinx looked grimly at Deathbird and stated in a voice like grating blocks of stone, "Return my Stone to me...NOW."
Warbird took in the state of the people in the room and called out "Dane, stop the Sphinx," as she launched herself at Deathbird. The alien warrioress however, proved to be as formidable a foe as she had in the past and evade Warbird's attack with ease. Warbird's momentum carried her past her original target towards the figure of TimeSlip.
The crack in Warbird's voice, and her use of his real name, brought The Black Knight back to his senses. He stepped in front of the Sphinx and took up a guard position.
Deathbird found her own way of returning the Stone to its rightfull owner. She fired off a blast from it at him. As the blast hit the Sphinx squarely in the chest he laughed. "You think to harm me with MY Stone? This proves you are not worthy of it."
He began to move forward, ignoring the Black Knight. The Knight executed a flawless overhead strike against the Sphinx, which he did not defend against. A look of complete disbelief passed over the Sphinx's face as the Ebony Blade sliced through his arm above the wrist. Blood poured from the wound before the Sphinx concentrated and the flow ceased. As he looked from the stump of his arm to the hand lying on the floor, the Knight continued to press his advantage.
The Sphinx reached out and grabbed for a nearby lamp stand. He used the make-shift staff to deflect the Knights following blows even using it with only one hand.
Deathbird's gaze left the two brawling titans and came to rest on Warbird helping TimeSlip to her feet. They were talking together but Deathbird had no need to hear what they said. She wanted them DEAD. Taking careful aim she unleashed her most powerful blast so far directly at Warbird.
Suddenly, Warbird pivoted to place TimeSlip directly in the path of the blast while keeping a firm hold on the young girl.
Once more reality rippled and tore around the room and everyone found themselves up to their knees in fetid swamp water.
A beam of crimson energy linked Deathbird to TimeSlip. The same energy warped and flowed around TimeSlip and Warbird, who was holding on to her. TimeSlip was obviously, once more in mortal agony as she could not stop screaming.
The reality around the protagonists began to fracture and warp wildly with one scene after another playing out. Slowly two dominant scenes began to move back and forth. One moment everyone was in the Shi'ar HQ in Seattle and the next they were in the swamp in the Everglades. As the two realities began to dominate it became obvious that the swamp was slowly achieving the upper hand.
Deathbird was the first to see this and with an inhuman growl she increased the energy flowing through the stone.
Whatever else Deathbird said was drowned out by the discharge of the energy from the Ka Stone and the ringing of steel on steel. The change in reality had momentarily caught the Knight off-guard. The Sphinx however, had sensed an opportunity and pressed for an advantage. Sparks flew when the Ebony Blade blocked the strikes from the Sphinx's makeshift staff. The strength the Sphinx was imparting to his blows was beginning to wear down the Knight's defenses. Dane Whitman gritted his teeth and tried to find a way to regain the offensive.
"You are good mortal," smiled the Sphinx, " but for the indignity you and your kind have caused me, you will die." Each word was punctuated by a blow. One glanced off the Ebony Blade and struck Dane Whitman's shoulder. Even the glancing blow was enough to send the Knight tumbling backwards off-balance.
The Knight tried desperately to flow with the movement and place himself in a position to continue the battle. His battle reflexes changed his tactic at the last moment as he threw himself into the swamp water. Two beams lanced over the spot he had vacated and impacted on the wall of Deathbird's chamber sending more debris flying around the room.
The Knight rolled to his feet and ending up standing next to a huge tree. He looked at the Sphinx and said coldly, "Better than you have tried to kill me, and some have come a lot closer than this."
The Sphinx looked at the Knight and smiled. "Mayhap mortal I was not worried with killing you, rather I simply wanted the pieces placed on the board to my satisfaction. I will soon have time aplenty to deal with you."
Dane immediately grasped the Sphinx's intent. He had been maneuvered so that now the Sphinx was between him and Warbird. An attack by him would only push the Sphinx towards his obvious goal. He had to find another line of attack.
As the Black Knight tried to find a way to stop the Sphinx, Deathbird had succeeded in halting the flow of reality and now the two realities were wavering back and forth at a rapid rate.
Warbird was getting desperate too. She had no idea how long the young woman she was holding could take this kind of punishment. "You can't win you alien witch," shouted Warbird as she tried to launch an energy blast. The distortion around the three woman caused the blast to veer wildly from its target and set fire to a large tree. However, Deathbird had flinched as if going to evade the blast. In doing so her concentration slipped for a fraction of a second and the swamp gained another foothold in the battle.
Deathbird's face held a look of fear, something that Warbird had never seen on it before. However, as she focused on the battle of wills once more, the realities began to flow more rapidly again. <"Not this time Danvers,"> hissed the Shi'ar warrior in her native tongue.
Warbird began to fire off blast after blast at Deathbird in the hope that one would get through the reality distortion. This time Deathbird studiously ignored the blasts and concentrated on the face of TimeSlip. It was only a matter of time before she gave up the fight. Deathbird would not give up. It was not in her nature.
A hand on her arm was what broke her concentration the second time. Reality changed around her again and the Everglades came into a solid focus. The black arm belonged to the man that she had loved. How could he have betrayed her? Through the tears in his eyes he was begging her to stop. Her backhand sent him flying to land in the swamp directly in front of a charging Black Knight.
The Knight tried desperately to halt his momentum, but Bishop was too close and he crashed over him.
Deathbird looked to see the Sphinx walking towards her and attempted to turn the power of the Ka Stone on its former bearer. She discovered that she could not stop the outpouring of power from the stone. She snarled as she tried to force the stone to shut down. Nothing happened. The power continued to mount and the clarity of the swamp continued to increase. Deathbird felt a hand fall on the Ka Stone and suddenly the power stopped. Looking up she saw the smiling face of the Sphinx.
Warbird knew that they now had an even bigger problem. She searched her body for every ounce of energy remaining and launched the result at the Ka Stone itself. The result was the jewel shattering and it felt like reality went along with it.
Sometime later, Carol Danvers opened her eyes and found herself lying in dirty swamp water. With a groan she sat up and wearily looked around. Lying nearby was the young Indian girl. "What did she call herself?" wondered Carol aloud.
"I must be tired," she thought, "I'm talking to myself again."
The girl was alive but looked exhausted. If they were going to get out of her it would be up to her. She sighed and looked around. There was no sign of anyone else. She shrugged and recognized she was in no state to look for trouble. She gathered.... TimeSlip?... into her arms and wearily took to the sky.
Elsewhere in a much warmer and drier location a tall Egyptian man stood looking out over the city of Alexandria. Next to him stood a very angry woman with feathered wings. The man looked down and smiled with a hint of malice at the woman. "You have potential. Not many could have used my Ka Stone so quickly. You will aid me in my plans and maybe eventually you will walk free again. For now you will pay the debt you owe."
The woman looked up at the man but said nothing. Her eyes said it all - "You will pay for this!"
The sunlight glinted off a red stone hanging from the mans neck...
(This however, is a story for another time and place.)
Next: We being a look at Carol's powers next issues. We also begin to examine her home of Seattle, and the dangers that she will face there.
Author NotesApologies for taking a little longer than planned with this issue. I had to make a number of changes to Barry's original plot to make it fit into what I have planned for the next year. Hopefully this didn't change things too much from Barry's original view of this issue.
I have a very big thank you to say to Barry Reese for taking a chance on a newcomer to fan fiction with this title. I would like to continue from the solid foundations that Barry laid and have this remain a title that people will come to Av2000 to read.
That said, the next twelve months will bring big changes to Carol's life and a lot of resolution too. There are storylines that I know some people had hoped not to see again, namely the alcoholism. I hope you will trust me when I say that I will deal with this issue once and for all. After that it will take a major retcon to bring it back to life again.
So come aboard for the ride, I hope I can keep you entertained enough to come back for each new issue.
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